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Thursday, January 12, 2012

KOREAN ROCK: The Ju Ju Club (1996~2000) (1)

In 1996, the Ju Ju
Club (or Juju Club), a new rock band, suddenly appeared in the Korean music industry,
seemingly out of nowhere. The band
consisted of Ju Dain (lead vocalist), Ju Seunghyeong (lead guitarist), and Ju
Seunghwan (bassist and drummer).1The Ju Ju Club literally shook up
the country with the title song from their debut album, 16/20. You can hear an unusual voice at the start of
the song – it seems as if Donald Duck is yodeling or something. Then the song goes: Yo, shocking, gimme love, gimme love, gimme
love. Yo, shocking, gimme love, gimme
love, gimme love. A-ya-ya-ya, shocking,
shocking. A-ya-ya-ya,
shocking, shocking…. Yes, it was shocking indeed. Shocking was her voice upon first listen and
shocking was the lyrics considering the societal cultural practices and lived
values back then in Korea.

In 1996, Korea was still in the
transitional, pseudo-democratic, period from military dictatorship (1961~1987) to
democracy (1998~2008)2– pro status-quo, if you will. Existing, old cultural and social values were
still there; yet, the arrivals of totally new cultural and social dynamics were
drawing near. The Taiji Boys or Seo Taiji and the Boys (서태지와아이들, Seo Taejiwa Aideul, 1992~1996) can be interpreted as the lived-allegory
of that era. Their music and
appearances were unconventional and not a few of their lyrics were critical of the systems and structures of Korean
society, hence brought controversy within ultra-conservative
authoritarian Korea most of time. Their
song, “The Unbearable Times” (시대유감,
Sidae Yugam, 1995), is considered to unintentionally
have triggered momentum toward the abolition of the powerful bureaucratic
system of pre-censorship practiced throughout the dictatorial era up
until then. Yet, during that era, even the Taiji Boys had
to give up their signature deep dyed-hair (in loud pink or green) to step up to the
podium, all dressed in black suits, to announce their disbandment.

1.
Ju Dain’s birth name is Kim Sumin.
The Ju brothers found her a new stage name to maintain the essence of the
band’s original name, the Ju Ju Band, which was named after the brothers’
surname – Ju. The Ju Ju Band was a
two-person band and released two albums; but they never earned mass appeal as they were too much into hard-core rock music and jazz. Choi Seongweon, a former member of the legendary Korean rock band, Deulgukhwa (들국화, "Wild Chrysanthemum"), introduced Ju Dain to the Ju brothers and the band eventually rose to fame after she joined the band and changed their genre to modern rock.

2.
South Korean democracy and economy were stabilized during Kim Dae-jung government
(1998~2003) and blossomed in Roh Moo-hyun government (2003~2008).

1996 was the year lots of rookie pop groups struggled to fill the void
left by the departure of the Taiji Boys and the majority of them concentrated
their efforts on dancing rather than singing.
So when the Ju Ju Club popped into the 1996’s Korean music industry,
they came across to the crowd as the sun among the inferior planets. Especially,
the band’s female lead vocalist, Ju Dain instantly grabbed the audience’s
attention with her peculiar, unique voice.3

The song, “16/20,” which is also the title of their debut
album, is about a 20-year-old
woman’s shocking encounter with a 16-year-old boy who had been disguising himself
as her age… on line and then on the phone. In the
music video, you can see Ju Dain singing at a computer desk – this implies the
woman had been chatting with the boy on line.
In 1996, the uses of personal computer communications, not the sales of
personal computers, increased dramatically in spite of Korea’s sliding economy.4And then,
the song reveals that the woman and the boy had grown on each other, so they
had exchanged their phone numbers and spoken to each other over the phone. The song, “16/20,” was right on money reflecting
the changes in the pattern of socializing dynamics – socializing through the
phone or computer monitor – that were occurring within Korea at that time. (If you want to watch the following video clips in HD full screen,
click on the titles on screen or double-click the clips.)

[MV] The Ju Ju Club: 16/20 (1996)

The song also portrays the
prevailing standards in the domains of love, dating, or even marriage, widely accepted
in Korea back then. Just listen to the song - the woman was so shocked when she found out the man she had been chatting with on line and was going to go out with was in fact a teenager. Please beware this
song is not about dating someone underage but about dating a younger guy or an
older woman.

Unlike nowadays, it was
considered almost as a sin, not literally but figuratively speaking, when an
older woman dated a younger guy. I have
an example in my immediate family – my parents.
My mom is three years (on paper, and one year in real life) older than
my dad but it had been a secret kept from me and my siblings until my brother
chanced to overhear some friend of my dad talking about the secret at my grandma’s
funeral – about how adamant Grandma was when she was against their relationship
only because Mom is older than Dad. Of
course, Korean Generation X’ers are less conventional and traditional than my
parents’ generation, but they still were a transitional generation between old and
new at that time.

The Ju Ju Club was the second male rock band featuring a female lead
vocalist in Korean history – the first was the Pipi Band (1995~1997) – and there’s
been a multitude of male rock bands with female singers ever since.5

3.
She was nicknamed “Korean Cranberries,” in which the word Cranberries
refers to Dolores O’Riordan. Apparently, the Ju Ju Club is one of many artists influenced by O'Riordan and Alanis Morissette as they gave special thanks to them in the album, along with Blondie and the Radiohead, for having been their musical inspirations.

4.
Korea faced an international financial crisis at the end of 1997,
which had ended in 2001.